Adventure Summaries and News for the World of Telvar

January 21, 1996

Stone Soules Summary IX: Finding Something Useful to Do

Beginning 12 July 2174 with healing after the Owl Bear attack.

Despite some minor incidents with wild animals on the way back, we arrived
at Middle safely and planned our next move. It was agreed that we should
find out if there any monsters plaguing the nearby elven village, Sert. If
this proved unsuccessful, we would journey to the Wild Wood Inn for some
more adventure possibilities. If these proved unfruitful, we would move on
and decide when the time arrived where we would go. The splinter party
consisted of myself, Theo, Faranyn and his squire, Pap, Cassana, Ludo, Eli,
Claude, his bodyguard, Jerem the archer, and Xavier. Faranyn and Pap
brought along their warhorses, Lochinvar and Thymine.

Cassana and Dari journeyed to the elven village to seek out information.
Most of the elven villages' problems were to the south and west near the
'Dark Wood,' inhabited by weird 'demons' and other minions of evil. There
were no particular local monsters which caused this village trouble.

Meanwhile, Faranyn's armor was patched up and I learned the light crossbow.
Aria's magical crossbow was given into my possession and I agreed to use it
at least for the duration of the trip.

We then headed on to the Wild Wood Inn to the south a good distance.
Nothing really happened except when we came upon someone climbing into a
tree. We scared him away and followed his trail. We later learned his name
was Harvey but he escaped unscathed.

He did, however, lead us right into the bandit camp, which we easily
surprised, even with our metal armor and horses. With a few key spells, we
managed to easily acquire the surrender of the 22 bandits. We tied them up
and marched them to the road. There, Pap began having the prisoners sing
cadence as they marched. My particular favorites were when he had them sing
some Dunadorian work-camp songs. Of course, this wore on your nerves very
quickly. They didn't seem to enjoy it either, especially when he yelled at
them for not singing.

A few days later we same upon a cart covered with bones near a bridge.
Faranyn and Cassana investigated and were attacked by giant ticks, who were
killed by them easily. Later, Cassana contracted a disease, we think, and
the cure disease button was used on him. Also, I buried the bones of the
cart-driver, hidden under the cart, the next day.

A couple of days after that, Ludo noticed ogres hiding up ahead, an unusual
thing to notice from the middle ranks of the party. We scared them off.
They threw a boulder at Hawk as he swooped over and Hawk fell. He did not
appear to have been actually hit by the boulder, but a weird scrape was
across his wing. I healed him.

A good distance later we turned in the bandits at Capel Tower. A few days
after that we stayed and relaxed at the Draken Castle Inn. Pap got the
half-day off, even.

A few days later we reached Montinelle. Apparently there was some confusion
at the gate, but we got in and sold the bandits' stuff for a good bit of
money, though time was wasted in the bartering. While in the market, a boy
tried to pickpocket Faranyn but Ludo noticed him somehow and easily grabbed
the boy. The guards were called, who acted obnoxious and acted like none of
the rest of us in the party were trustworthy. Eventually, they extracted 5
g.p. Faranyn was missing from the boy, but could not press charges because
none of the passersby who clearly saw the incident were willing to admit to
having seen it. Faranyn looked pretty steamed that day and insisted that we
leave Montinelle as soon as possible.
They annoyed us again on the way out when we had sold the bandits' horses we
didn't intend to sell, but Faranyn appeared in no mood to argue. We payed
the "double taxes" for our "offense" of selling the horses.

Anyway, we then headed north and bore right towards the Wild Wood. We
encountered another group of adventurers on the road and we were both
spooked and clearly dismayed when Ludo suddenly attacked and hit one in the
scrub nearby. This prompted an attack from us, because Ludo had attacked,
but not really understanding why. We easily took several captive and talked
to Ludo sternly. We determined that Ludo could see some kind of blob shape
with the other party, and he thought it might be evil. It was determined
that Ludo's vision had become more acute and he could see the other party
members even if he wasn't facing them. We determined from the situation
that it was all a misunderstanding and freed the other folks without harming
them. The mage (ludo's 'blob' -- apparently appeared that way to Ludo when
it was invisible) and an archer cautiously withdrew and expressed our
regrets. We then accosted Ludo with what he had done, briefly, and then
moved on.

During that encounter we had seen a camouflaged lizard like creature with
wings hanging on Ludo's belongings, but it flew up and away. Still, Ludo
could see slightly from above the party or nearby any time he cared to. We
could not find the lizard shape again but clearly Hawk was disturbed by it
when I talked to him. He said he looked like a tasty dragonfly but that it
had bitten him back at the ogres when he had tried to eat it. Eli had
hypothesized it might be a little demon "Quasit" but since he hadn't seen it
he didn't know.

Ludo's gear, much to my dismay did not detect as magical, despite the fact
that he clearly still felt its benefits. When transferred to other folks it
was perfectly magical. When I concentrated on the fact that no mortal
creature could possibly deceive Phaulkon, all his gear appeared magical or
normal as it was originally.

This was all very strange, but then Ludo tried to communicate with the
creature. It said its name was Thurmond and that it was the familiar of a
wizard we had recently been eaten by a 'blue lizard as big as a bridge,' the
Behir. It liked Ludo because he was "little."

This got me to wondering whether it might be a member of the Little People
who might have been eaten by the Behir, but we really don't know. We are
too far away from Middle to check, and it doesn't appear to have happened so
we don't know.

January 14, 1996

Stone Soules Summary VIII: Death and Taxes

The scores on this week's game:

Little People 5
Lesser Ones 0
(some unspecified number were still left even after they killed 'em)

Stone Soules 2
Little People 4
(that is, taxes:
we did taxes without identifying the items. The LP took the magic arrows
as a lot as their choice and our second choice got a magic scimitar; we
also got a potion but they got a magic long sword and a token and potion

Note that previously we traded our +3 SMALL shield to the LP for +1 Long
sword for Ceydric and +1 Chain for Cassana)

Little People 0
Faranyn 1
(the Scimitar turned out to be a +2 Intelligent Scimitar that strikes fear
into the hearts of your enemies, written in Archaeic, this Neutral Good
sword's name is Baneful)

January 01, 1996

Well, folks. Volume II in the continuing Lendore saga of Sam'n Friends adventuring group has suddenly and unexpectedly turned into the final volume. No matter what happens (okay maybe it wasn't THAT unexpectedly!) the group will never have the same name or composition again. That mostly comes from the fact that Sam and most of the party is dead.

One major lesson:
The haunted and creepy nature can be a boon for people intending to play off it.

And the always pertinent message:
Most assuredly you WILL hang separately if you don't stay together. However, lawful personalities are not very common among some adventuring groups....

Rest in Peace:
Ketone, Captain, killed by halfling archers
Sam, woodsman/Cleric of Phaulkon, killed by halfling archers
Sparrowhawk, obsessively stealthy and paranoid woodsman, killed by halfling archers
Blood, Cleric of Kord, killed ultimately by a halfling Commanded to jump to its death
Andrew, mage, killed by a falling rock
Dolgan, dwarven fighter, killed by an ant-lion-like beetle/thing
Loredo, woodsman, killed by halfling archers, dropped off stairs
one more fellow who's name eludes me at the moment (??)

Captured:
Larry, halfling, by the halfling archers

Escaped:
Hecht, last of the Dept. Store halflings, into the wilderness of Lendore...